


When Life Doesn't Even Give You Lemons

by righteouscharlie



Category: One Piece
Genre: Anxiety, Asexual Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Gen, Genderfluid Character, Idk what happened, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, LGBTQ Character, Self-Insert, Suicidal Thoughts, also this was supposed to be humourous, i used to be such a jock, i'm so sorry if there are a ridiculous amount of sports references, it's not, okay this is an actual self insert of teenage me, so like i guess be prepared for a bit of a drama queen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 17:24:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8632108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/righteouscharlie/pseuds/righteouscharlie
Summary: Chelsea Euwin, a girl not familiar with the one piece universe, is torn unceremoniously from our world and is thrown straight into some of the less pleasant aspects of One Pieces culture.  Read along as she tries to return home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: This character suffers from Anxiety and Depression. There will be mentions in regards to self-harm and suicide. I will try to include more specific warnings but it may slip my mind. I apologise if this happens.

**Chapter One - I should know better than to complain (someone upstairs clearly has it out for me)**

A shuddering breath slipped from the small girl's lips. Her face was taut with pain as she hunched protectively over her right arm.

_It’s getting worse._

The thought flitted through her mind, despite her best efforts to keep it locked away. She’d managed to keep up a solid wall of denial for so long too. She’d been unable to hold up a spoonful of porridge more than once.  Still, the wall held and she was able to tell herself it would all be fine. That time would heal all wounds. Unfortunately most sayings seemed to be pure bullshit, as time had only made things worse.

She grit her teeth, not allowing the slightest whimper to slip out. She’d only just admitted her weakness to herself, no need to broadcast it to the world. Besides people might be concerned at such noises drifting from a toilet stall.

Another spasm of pain, like someone was reefing a blunt nail along her forearm, then the pain settled for a moment. A dull throbbing ache instead of a sharp tearing one. Chelsea didn’t know which form of agony she despised more. The sharp and tearing pain may have hurt more, but it wasn’t a constant in her life. It came and went, usually in response to her pushing herself far too hard for her damaged wrist to bear. The dull throbbing, however, never left her, it coloured every moment in her life.

It had only ever been with dark amusement that Chelsea listened to her doctor. ‘Don’t do things that make it hurt’ he had said. That wasn’t a short list and the first thought that had crossed her mind had been ‘what? Existing?’ Chelsea didn’t let that joke slip out though. Wouldn’t do to have people think she was suicidal, (that was a completely different issue she should probably have seen too).

As it was Chelsea had decided to completely ignore all advice given to her. She didn’t want to give up the only thing that kept her going, her sport. If she didn’t have her sport what would she do? Stare at her ceiling all day every day, that’s what.

She needed the rush that competition gave her, that desire to win, to improve, to be the best. She couldn’t replace that with her academics.  She was already talented in the classes she had decided to take and she needed something that she didn’t have a natural inclination for. That’s why she didn’t compete in swimming or taekwondo anymore. No, she needed to overcome fierce odds.

 She needed to be handicapped from the get go. For example, by being a 5’2” basketball player with no co-ordination whatsoever. And that’s what she had been.

She’d come so far. Taking all of the hurdles she had been given and practically smashing through them. This time last year she had only just made it onto the team. Had only been allowed on the court if the team was assured of its victory (or loss) and now. Now she was an important member, she got as much time as any of the top players. And just as she had the peak of her mountain in her grasp, her body had decided to fuck her over.

“God fucking damn it!” Chelsea whispered to herself, pushing her left hand through her strawberry blonde locks. A few strands slipped out of the loose ponytail she had worn in her last game.

_When will those painkillers kick in?!_

Not that painkillers ever did much for her. They just took the edge off of the pain, but that was fine, that was all she needed. She only had one more game to play tonight after all… Then three more tomorrow. She grimaced.

Chelsea shifted herself further forward on the plastic toilet seat she was perched on. It wasn’t like she’d be the only sore person on the court. Everyone was in the same boat. Each game added its own injuries and strains to every individual.  That was how tournaments worked. Renee had a chronic back condition. Chelsea couldn’t help but feel a touch ashamed, she’d never seen Renee lock herself in a bathroom. Of course, if all went to plan no one would see Chelsea doing that either.

 The pain killers seemed to be taking effect. Chelsea uncurled herself slightly, raising her trembling limb out in front of her so she could glare at it.

_Don’t fuck me over!_ She thought at it.

It was at that moment she felt something tug her forward. She lurched, body tucking into a well-rehearsed roll as she fell. It was a movement she had beaten into herself the moment she learnt of its existence. Head down, arms bent and spaced so as to catch and transfer her weight. One shoulder dropped slightly so she’d automatically flip onto it. The rest of her tucked and curved. The movement had saved, if not her life, her dignity and unbroken bones, many times.

Her bare skin hit a wooden surface, a fact which set off many red flags, and she proceeded over her shoulder and straight onto her feet, knees bent and feet positioned in a standard fighting stance (a habit from learning such a trick at her Taekwondo classes). When her eyes opened she had a moment to take note of the wrongness of her surroundings. Of the clear blue sky that met a gently churning ocean. Of the wooden ship that rocked ever so slightly beneath her feet and of a large amount of uniformed people standing around her, weapons by their hips. Two held a large unconscious man, the others faced her.

The moment ended and the men lunged.

**xXx**

It took Chelsea an embarrassing amount of time to peel herself off of the wooden floor of her cage. Her arms tremored as she held herself off of the ground. An unbearable agony nearly toppling her back over. But she didn’t fall. Had she done so, she would have slipped into unconsciousness. She had nearly done just that when she had been carelessly thrown into the cell. It had only been her unwavering sense of pride that had kept the white fuzziness from swallowing her consciousness.

Now it was her burning rage that helped her haul herself to her feet. She drew in a breath and screeched. She didn’t bother to add any words to the noise she made, she just let her emotions colour her ear piercing scream. Had anyone been in the room with her they would have, at the very least, winced at the sheer loudness of such a cry. When her anger didn’t lessen she took a step back, glare focused on the well-lit staircase, and threw herself shoulder first into the bars before her.

She jerked back with a hiss when the bars seared her skin, an angry red welt beginning to rise across her shoulder. Her body shuddered in response to the burn. She hated being burnt. In fact, she hated the sensation enough that she didn’t try ramming the bars again. Instead, she began to pace, trying to ignore the sensation of her basketball singlet chaffing her wound. It was hard for her to think when she was so angry, but unfortunately that was all she was able to feel in such a situation.

Fear and pain had been filed away as resources for anger in her mind. It wasn’t like she could change such a key part of herself in mere moments. What she needed to do was release some of that fury so she could think again.

But her room was close to empty. A wooden bucket had been tucked away in the corner, probably to be used as a toilet, and that was all she had. Chelsea strode over to the bucket and picked it up. Her fingers tightened around the handle before she flung it at the bars of her cage. The wooden object merely bounced off of the metal, cracks appearing where the wood had met metal. Chelsea picked the bucket up once more and threw it with all her might. She felt a minuscule amount of rage slip from her chest as the object shattered. Perhaps if she threw the wooden chunks at anyone who came near her cage she would be calm enough to think. But then again, perhaps she wouldn’t be.

**xXx**

 

Chelsea had always been afraid of the dark.  Well, it wasn’t so much the dark that scared her as it was what could be lurking in the shadows.  She could admit the fear to herself as she huddled in her cell, her breathing forcefully steady and her chest aching with anxiety.  She had snuck into her parent’s room long past an acceptable age, she hadn’t been so full of pride back then. 

Chelsea wasn’t a stranger to anxiety and as the night had fallen, she found herself plunged into darkness.  She forced herself to bite down on her terror. 

She sat with her back against the wooden wall of her cell, staring in the direction she knew the exit was.  There was a faint silvery glow coming from the opening above the staircase.  Unfortunately, the tiny trickle of light only made the surrounding darkness all the more ominous.  She could feel herself slipping back into the burning rage she had felt before.  Anger was an easier emotion to deal with, in her opinion, but she tried to reign it in.  She needed to think if she wanted to escape.  And she definitely wanted to escape.

Chelsea wasn’t entirely sure of what had happened to her, but there were quite a few things she had already figured out.  The first problem to sort out was where exactly she was, but that was not an easy answer.  She was almost certain that pull she had felt was some kind of teleportation.  That meant she definitely wasn’t anywhere near home anymore, but that was as far as she could theorise.  There was also the slight possibility she was in some kind of weird coma, but that didn’t make sense to her.  She wasn't particularly ill, nor had she hit her head.

Another thing Chelsea knew was that the people who captured her were involved in human trafficking.  A fact that was made painfully obvious to her in the form of a brand.  An icy hand gripped her throat at the memory and she shuddered.  The last thing of note Chelsea had managed to figure out was that she was not what the inhabitants of the ship were expecting.  She had heard whispers drifting down from above that wondered at her ferocity.  The phrase “I thought her kind were supposed to be fragile” had stuck with her.

She had also heard some strange terms thrown around such as ‘Sea stone’ and ‘devil fruit’.  Not that she knew what any of that meant.  The phrases sounded important though so she committed them to memory.

It was while she was trying to sort through the snippets of conversation she had heard that she saw it.  A flicker of movement in the light.  Chelsea was so shocked by the movement that she had not been able to stop the air from hissing out between her teeth. 

There was silence for a moment before she heard soft footsteps approaching her.  She clenched her jaw and forced her breathing to remain steady, then shifted up onto the balls of her feet.  She was crouched but ready to leap at a moment's notice.

Chelsea heard the shifting of fabric and then a sudden popping sound seemed to echo through the room, causing her to jolt in shock.  Then there was light.

The movement Chelsea had spotted belonged to a young woman.  Shadows danced across her face as she shifted the glowing stick so as to angle the light better.  She had large round eyes that peered at her through the bars of her cage.  Short orange hair fell just past her chin, mostly concealed by a dark beanie.  In fact, all of the clothes she wore were darkly coloured and form fitting.  Ideal for sneaking unseen through shadows.

Chelsea didn’t know what to make of the woman.  So she just stayed as she was, watching her warily.  The expression on the woman’s face was somewhere between angry and sad.  There was another click and darkness fell once more, much to Chelsea’s chagrin.

There were more footsteps, this time they moved away from her, back towards the stairs.  Then they were gone and Chelsea was left alone once more.

Chelsea didn’t know how long it was before she caught another movement by the stairway.  She had never been able to tell the passing of time without a clock.  The footsteps came forward once more, closer to the cage than they had before.  Chelsea tensed, feeling uneasy at being trapped and unable to see with a stranger in the same room as her.

There was no popping sound and flood of light this time, instead there was the rattling of metal objects and the click of a lock.  Chelsea only just managed to halt her rush for her escape, forcing herself to slow and hesitantly reach in front of her.  The last thing she needed was to run face first into the burning bars and hurt herself further.

The hinges of the cell door creaked slightly as they swung open, thankfully away from Chelsea.

“Come on,” a voice whispered from the dark.

Chelsea obliged, darting forward and up the stairs as silently as she could.  The deck was bathed in moonlight, shades of silver denoting where one needed to watch their shins.  A dark mess by one of the masts looked suspiciously like an unconscious person but Chelsea paid it no mind.  Instead, she bolted to the ship's railing, eyes examining the black glassy surface that Chelsea took to be the ocean, and sprung up onto it.

She took a moment to steady herself, not wanting to screw up her escape by sounding like a boulder hitting the water.  Her body curved into a pre-diving position, despite the pain she felt when the skin by her hip shifted.  Then she was sailing through the air and into the water, body as straight as it could be.  Arms stretched out, feet pointed.

Chelsea chose to use a moderately shallow dive, unsure of how deep the water was.  The bulky basketball shoes didn’t slip as seamlessly into the water as the rest of her and she grimaced.  That would create more sound than she intended.  She travelled a fair way under the water, feeling soothed by the icy liquids embrace.  Her hair was slipping from her hair tie, but still she didn’t have to worry about it getting in her way, not while she rocketed forward, still propelled by the force of her dive.  Her burnt skin flared in agony when the salt water hit it, but the sensation was lost to Chelsea.  She had felt worse pain mere hours before.  Besides, salt water was good for healing wounds.

 When she finally came up for a breath she took a moment to tread water before untying her shoe laces and slipping her shoes off of her feet.  She was hesitant to leave them behind, but she knew they’d do her no good in the ocean, they would only hinder.  Besides, she could always buy herself a new pair.  She released them and then peeled off her socks, letting them follow suite.

Feet now free of any restrictions Chelsea turned away from the dark silhouette that had been her prison and slipped into an effortless and quiet freestyle.  It wasn’t until much later she cursed herself for being so stupid.  The woman who freed her probably had her own transportation available and at the very least had deserved to be thanked.

**xXx**

Koala didn’t mind the lack of thanks, she didn’t release the young girl for that.  What she did mind was her leaping into the icy depths of the ocean when there was no land anywhere near them.  She hoped that the girl would be okay.  She had caught the tail end of her dive and noted the ease with which she slid into the water.  That at least was comforting.  She had listened for the sound of someone breaching the surface and was surprised by how quiet and far away the displacement of water was.

She had considered calling out for her to wait a second, but that would have woken the rest of the ship and she still wasn’t done searching for important documents.  She’d seen a promising filing cabinet when she had taken the keys to the girl’s cage.

No, she couldn’t do any more for the young girl, she could only hope someone found her before she drowned.  To be honest she hadn’t found the girls rush surprising.  She had seen the look in her eyes when she used her emergency glow torch.  The look of a caged animal.  In fact, she wouldn't have been surprised if the girl had tried to attack her.

So Koala went back to snooping.  After all, the ship of someone who works directly under a celestial dragon was bound to have something of use on it.

**Author's Note:**

> Ah! I was going to write this for NaNoWriMo but I had exams until the 15th so that didn't happen.  
> So a bit about the character. Chelsea is based entirely off of seventeen year old me. Anything she can do in this section of the story I could do at her age. Also disclaimer: I was even more of a mess back then so this character is not going to be anywhere near perfect, in fact, I would say she isn't even going to be consistent. Seventeen was a strange time.
> 
> If you have any questions or criticisms please let me know! I'll answer anything that isn't going to spoil the plot and I'd like to know how I can improve my writing.


End file.
